Mantel Regulator Clock Showing Mean and Solar Time
The inventory of the Château de Saint-Cloud made in January 1794 features two clocks in Marie-Antoinette’s pièce des nobles (room for receiving visiting nobility) that were not there during the previous inventory of 1789. One of them is probably the present example made by Robert Robin, clockmaker to the king, who signed the dial. However, the queen probably never saw this clock as she was not permitted to visit her castle after 1791. Around 1860, the clock was still, or again, at Saint-Cloud, in the bedroom of Empress Eugénie, who surrounded herself with objects that belonged, or were thought to have belonged, to Marie-Antoinette.
Source: Vignon, Charlotte. The Frick Collection Decorative Arts Handbook. New York: The Frick Collection/Scala, 2015.
